As we all know, the mainland has many national essences, such as the three national treasures that are famous at home and abroad: Peking Opera, Chinese Medicine and Chinese Painting. So do you know that mahjong is actually a kind of national essence of China, once the exclusive game of the royal family and the princes and nobles, and its history can be traced back to more than 3,000 years ago. In the end, after a long period of historical evolution, it was only from court games to mass games that many mahjong halls appeared in the folk. The final shape of mahjong was in the Qing Dynasty.
The origin of mahjong
It is said that mahjong originated in the Ming Dynasty and was created by a man named Wan Bao Tiao, who made three basic colors based on "leaf lattice" and named it after himself "Wan, Cake, Strip". On the other side, some people said that mahjong was originally a "grain protection card" made in Taicang, Jiangsu Province. For example, the "barrel" is the symbol of the gunpowder gun.
Others say that there are 108 pieces of mahjong, each representing a person in Liangshan Good Hanli, 108 pieces representing a total of 108 people, and the southeast, southwest, and northwest represent that these good men come from the southeast, southwest, and northwest, and are gathered from all directions. Zhongfa bai refers to the fact that some of these 108 people are middle-class, some are nobles who have made a fortune, and some are ordinary poor people, that is, baiding. In the end, it became what mahjong looks like today, and the ten thousand, cake, and strip are based on the name of the person who transformed mahjong.
Whatever the history of mahjong is that way of saying it. In short, during the Qing Dynasty, mahjong was no longer a rare object. In the late Qing Dynasty, mahjong became one of the ways for the royal family to entertain, and no one did not like to play mahjong.
Dedicated mahjong
The last emperor Puyi also loved mahjong very much, and he had a special love for mahjong. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, puyi and his party were not expelled from the Forbidden City according to the Preferential Conditions for the Qing Dynasty.
On the contrary, the newly established government of the Republic of China will give Puyi a huge amount of money every year to maintain their extravagant lives. It was not until 1924, when the warlord Feng Yuxiang entered the Forbidden City, that Puyi was driven out. For the next 12 years, Puyi didn't have any government affairs to talk about, so his only pleasure, and the only way to kill time, was to play mahjong.
At the time when the Qing Dynasty was about to fall, the Manchu royal family members had their own pair of mahjong, such as Empress Dowager Cixi, who belonged to the sheep, so there was a pair of mahjong called "Imperial Jiyang Mahjong", and Puyi was no exception. In order to highlight Puyi's honorable status, but also in order to make him play happily, the people of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also made a pair of mahjong for him, called "Multicolored Screw Tungsten Card".
So what does this multicolored screw card look like? How fine is it? Don't worry, look down slowly. There are two pairs of multicolored screw cards, varying in size. The big cards are for men, and the small cards are for women. It can be seen that even mahjong can reflect the different systems of men and women in feudal society at that time, and feudal ideas are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. However, at that time, mahjong did not have a mixed play between men and women, even if it was a relationship between Brother and the princess, it was absolutely impossible, otherwise it would be criticized.
Production process
So, how beautiful is this multicolored screw card? How fine is the workmanship? Don't worry, you look down slowly. At that time, mahjong was generally made of materials such as bamboo and wood as the base material, while some high-grade mahjong were carved by hand by choosing a variety of aggregates and scraps.
Gold and silver can also be used to make mahjong, but it is cold and does not feel good, so no one uses it. Although mahjong made of sheepskin jade, jadeite and other materials is exquisite, and the high-end atmosphere is high-grade, but this kind of thing is easy to break, and it is easy to be corroded by sweat, which is not strong, so it has not been the main material for making mahjong, and it has not entered the mainstream.
Although Puyi is the last emperor and the king of the country, if he wants to play mahjong, he still needs a mahjong that shows more identity than ordinary people. After receiving the "holy will" that Puyi needed mahjong, the subordinates immediately began to work. The use of ebony as the primary material makes mahjong not only look beautiful and comfortable, but also feel good. Puyi also told the central government that he had no problem with the quality of the skeleton of mahjong, but that he had to carve patterns on ebony. Puyi's favorite is the plum pattern on the multicolored screw plate.
After receiving the "Holy Will", the Minister of the Interior was about to cry, he was an outsider, outside of mahjong, the painting on the multicolored screw card engraved was not a problem, and the painting on the multicolored screw plate engraved on the outside of more than a hundred mahjong was not a problem. But the difficulty is that the painting on the exact same multicolored screw card needs to be carved on more than a hundred mahjong, and no error or error is allowed. That's a very tricky question.
In order to keep his official position, the minister of internal affairs only invited more than a dozen workers who were good at carving, and carefully carved patterns for Puyi under his eyelids. A set of cards only needs more than a hundred, but in order not to make a mistake, they made a total of more than a thousand mahjong, and then in this more than a thousand mahjong, they selected more than a hundred mahjong that were exactly the same in pattern and color, and personally sent it to Puyi.
This kind of mahjong production consumes energy and time, but the mahjong made is very exquisite, it is no longer a pair of mahjong, it has exceeded the realm of mahjong, and has become a work of art, a priceless treasure. Experts estimate that this pair of mahjong is at least 200 million yuan.
He fled to Japan and eventually returned to Japan
In order to prevent copies, the remaining mahjong cards were destroyed by the Ministry of the Interior. And this pair of mahjong accompanied Puyi through many periods, including when he was driven out of the imperial palace, to Tianjin, and later to Jilin to be the pseudo-emperor of Manchukuo, this pair of mahjong did not leave his hand. Later, after the fall of puppet Manchukuo in 1945, Puyi and Mahjong also fell. Later, under the inexplicable coincidence, this pair of mahjong actually fell into the hands of the Japanese.
The final owner of this pair of mahjong is a famous Japanese publisher, his name is Kyoichiro Noguchi, this person has a very strong interest in mahjong, in order to understand mahjong, even thousands of miles to China, learn the origin, development, and climax of mahjong, etc., he got this pair of mahjong, not only treat it as a treasure, do not allow people to touch casually, but also for him to spend a lot of money to build a mahjong museum, the pair of mahjong in the museum on display, so that many people see the beauty of this Chinese mahjong, It also reflects his deep love for this pair of mahjong.
Later, before Kyoichiro Noguchi died, he made a decision that touched many people on the mainland, and he would return the multicolored screw cards to China. He believes that everyone who dies is delusional to return to their hometown, and mahjong should be the same. Since mahjong originated in China, it is time to let it return to its hometown, and he hopes that his mahjong museum will be handed over to China.
So, on July 16, 2013, two years after The Death of Noguchi. This mahjong museum finally came to China after many mediations. At that time, Puyi's multicolored screw brand finally returned to the embrace of the motherland after a hundred years of vicissitudes.